Pro Surfer Kyle Thiermann, Jack Johnson, and Others on 'Toxic Tumbleweeds' and More Single-Use Plastics Photo: Surfing for Change Plastic has most certainly been demonized over the past decade and with good reason. But even still, we spend roughly $100 billion every year on bottled water . And that's just plastic water bottles. Single-use plastics have caused devastating repercussions to our planet to put it mildly. But what may surprise you is that our own Hawaiian Islands, especially the east side of Oahu, have become a filter in the Pacific Ocean for plastic waste from the mainland. View the entire comment thread.